Nina's wrists burned.
Not because the ropes were too tight, but because she had already struggled too much against them earlier, wasting strength that she knew she should have saved.
The room she was kept in was small, barely lit, with walls that smelled of old wood and damp air, and a floor that felt cold even through the thin fabric of her clothes. She had long since stopped counting how much time had passed since she was dragged here. Time felt meaningless when every second stretched too long.
The door creaked.
Nina lifted her head slowly, her eyes sharp despite the exhaustion weighing down her body. The woman who stepped in was dressed in white, the same woman Nina had followed from the forest earlier.
Her clothes were clean in a way that didn't fit this broken world, and her expression was calm but guarded, like someone who had already decided what kind of person Nina was.
